"Amazing journeys begin with a simple decision to go"

Pearl Farm Village in Halong Bay – what’s really happening to the oysters.

Trekchick26 reporting undercover here at the Pearl Farm Village of Halong Bay, Monday February 1, 2016. I’m here under the guise of a tourist on an overnight cruise of the bay. We have arrived at the farm to witness the procedure in which pearls are made. But I’ve managed to interview Vivienne Oyster, one of many Akoya oysters common here to northern Vietnam. She has agreed to share her experiences of life as an oyster on the “pearl farm.”

So Vivienne Oyster, what is life like here at the “pearl farm”.

I’ve been here for nearly three years. I mainly spend my time in the water, locked in a cage with some of my friends. I don’t know where my family have gone. One day all of us were taken out of the water, and when I returned, all of my family were missing along with half of my friends.

What happened to you when you left the water? I was really scared, especially when I was lying in my cage with all my friends and family out of the warmth of the water. Suddenly we were all thrown onto this hard wooden floor and an alien being with ten hands and a cone head started to reach for my friends and family, staring at us, then separating us into different groups.

You were taken into an operating room. What happened there?

My memories here are hard to recollect, but I remember being locked into this cold metal clamp. Suddenly the alien with ten hands was opening me up, and I felt a metal object inside of me. The aliens inserted a round coral bead. I wanted to remove it but they placed it deep within so I couldn’t reject it. I can feel it inside of me now, growing. I’m scared. I have no idea what will happen.

It is here I’ve had to end my interview with Vivienne as another group of humans arrive at the farm. But I did manage to continue my own investigations on what Vivienne’s fate might be, and unfortunately it doesn’t end well.

Only 30% of the oysters that undergo “theoperation” survive to be placed back into the water. They can live here peacefully for up to 3 years before they are removed for one fatal last time.Vivenne’s family didn’t survive the surgical procedure.

The last moments of life of an oyster at the hands of the aliens occurs when they are opened alive. With a swift flick of the knife, the inserted coral bead is ejected in the form of a pearl and the oyster dies.

The success rate to produce a pearl is only 40%. All the successfully grown pearls are then sold at the shop onsite.

The entire procedure of pearl harvesting has disturbed me deeply, and I believe this might be a perfect case for Fox Mulder and Dana Scully of the X-Files.

This is trekchick26 signing off here at the “pearl farm” here in Halong Bay, Vietnam.